Dear Friends of VISA,
Its the end of summer and the beginning of a new season of excitement and possibilities. I'd like to start the new semester by talking about obsessions. I am wary about how this word gets thrown around, especially in the case of art. Work that involves any kind of repetition, is immediately described as being 'obsessive' or 'obsessive compulsive'. I think I resent the word because it has an underlying feeling of a pathology to it, and I try to resist our societies' tendency to turn everything into some kind of disorder or syndrome. If you read a lot of books by one author, or if you listen to the songs of one musician, people immediately assume that you are 'obsessed' by this writer or singer. As someone who continually gets accused of doing 'obsessive-compulsive work' because my work often involves very detailed cutting, I would like to ask for a reclassification of the term 'obsessive compulsive', in particular when it is referring to an art or craft practice, and exchange it with 'passionate engagement'. 

Paradoxically I have decided to highlight an artist who supposedly does have a mental disorder and has spent a fair amount time in and out of mental institutions, Yayoi Kusama, whose work is currently on display at the Whitney. When I first read about Kusama's practice and saw her work (I discovered her work in an exhibition at the AGGV curated by Lisa Baldissera called 'Fantastic Frameworks' in 2004), I didn't think of someone who is mentally ill, but rather someone who is outwardly expressing inner thoughts and ideas. This is something we are all afraid to do and I can't help wonder if by labeling such behaviour as an illness, we can absolve ourselves of the need to 'express' in such a way in our own life. Kusama is the quintessential 'obsessive' artist by today's pathology-happy standards. She is 83 years old and has basically spent her entire art career focussing on dots. At times she seems like a character in Put Me in the Zoo  who went awry and took the spot idea to its furthest possible conclusions. Kusama says she is passionate about the dot because everything is made up dots: all matter, from sub-atomic particles, to the cells that make up our bodies, to the stars that cover the heavens above. At the age of ten, Kusama began to see, or hallucinate (as she describes it), dots when she looked at people's faces. To me her work is more about the truth of observation and experience rahter than obsession.

This week's reading comes from an unlikely source, The Financial Times: The world according to Yayoi Kusama. And for those of you who want more information here is a good interview from Bomb Magazine (1999). And there is a video that will give you some historical details of her career. The image below is an installation by Kusama called 'Fireflies on the Water'. I saw this at the Whitney this summer (I was two weeks to early for the Kusama exhibition but I did get to see this installation). After acquring a 'timed ticket' and waiting for my designated time, I was escorted by a guard to enter a room that is approximately 25' x 25' with walls and ceiling covered in mirrors. The door was then closed behind me and I was allowed one minute in solitude with the work. The floor has a few inches of water on it and the viewer, as you can see in the image below, stands on a platform. Hanging from the ceiling are thousands of coloured lights and the mirrors and water create endless reflections giving a really authentic feeling of infinity. This work does not seem like the work of someone with a mental illness. It seems like the work of somebody who might be in touch with the secret of the universe. 

& fabulous

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